


give me a vice (i'll name it a virtue)

by sensibleshroom



Category: Original Work, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jango Fett Open Seasons (Comics)
Genre: Additional Tags to Be Added, Fluff and Angst, Ghost!Tarre Vizsla, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Culture Respected, Just not Sheev, Local Mandalorian Can't Help But Not Parent, Mandalorian culture respected, Multi, Rating subject to change, Slowly uncovering backstory and context, Transphobia, We even respecting the Sith up in here, bear with me, deadnaming (deadname is redacted), even tho he's dead, figuring out an original character from a novel, fuck Sheev, jumpscares, so if that ain't your cup of tea, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 02:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30048291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensibleshroom/pseuds/sensibleshroom
Summary: Healing is a complex process, and most of it involves grieving until you move on.Avarice Janus had read Hatchet. They had never fully considered that it could be a lot more terrifying when ghosts are involved. One miscalculation, and now they're in another world, with a weapon that has a lot more baggage than they had even began to consider.Step one: survive Ruusan.Step two: survive Death Watch.Step three: profit.
Relationships: Jon Antilles & Original Nonbinary Character, Original Nonbinary Character & Jango Fett, Original Nonbinary Character/Jaster Mereel, Tarre Vizsla & Original Nonbinary Character
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> General warning: Avarice is genderfluid, and their pronouns change on a day to day basis. There are a lot of trans meta jokes in here, so keep that in mind, and the narration is subject to change based on their gender of the day. You can refer to them with any pronouns, but the general default is they/them. They use all pronouns.
> 
> It will be slowly revealed, but for those that want context and understanding from the very start: Avarice's 'ability', ie 'superpower' is basically 'magical person'. Like magical girl, but their outfit, hair, body type, and weapon changes on a day to day basis depending on what gender they're feeling. They have no real control over it, but their ability gives them superhuman strength and speed, weapons that never blunt, unlimited ammo, and the ability to 'respawn' weapons. One chapter may refer to them as they/them, but another might refer to them as she/her or he/him or even fae/faer.

Dreams, Avarice had decided, were the result of fruitless hopes, born to seed nothing but pain and misery.

This was a dramatic thought, and they knew it was senselessly ironic, considering that once upon a time, they had been a dreamer. In a world of abilities, class, money, power, they had the gift of ability, but not of anything else, and so of course, they had dreamed. How could they not? They had one fourth of the equation, which was more than what most people could say. If they just used their ability right, they could buy their mother a home, live with expendable income, have a nice, comfortable bed to lay their head at night, maybe indulge in a shopping spree at Lush every so often.

They’d been born with the cards stacked against them, but they had  _ ability. _

And look where that got them. Slipping through the streets in the dead of night, assumed dead, an arrow nocked to a bow, because of  _ course _ the gender of the day had decided that tonight was a  _ long range _ night, they  _ hated _ long range, and bows and arrows were the  _ worst. _ Couldn’t the gender of the day just be fucking  _ gun? _ What were they, fucking Legolas? And the goddamn  _ coattails. _ It didn’t even  _ match. _ The coattails should have the glock, not the arrows.

Thoughts of irritation were pushed out of their mind, because they were close. He was moving again, and this time he would not get away.

“Little [redacted]...” A singsong voice called out, and Avarice whirled, angling their arrow up as they tried to peer through the gloom of the shipping containers. “You’re not getting very far very fast…”

“I’m doing what I need to do,” Avarice said, their chest clenching with some unnamed emotion, and there was a laugh, grating and sending every hair on end as they spun, the tip of their arrow angled down the corridor as the echoes reverberated through their bones.

“That’s a sharp point, little Guardian,” Tierney called, and Avarice spun, muscles on their back flexing as they pulled the arrow back, leveled it  _ right _ where his heart should be, and then they just…

Breathed.

“Were you planning on taking me in alive, or have you forgotten every oath you swore?” Tierney asked, and the scent of ozone and petrichor filled the air. Avarice swung around, lowering the bow, their heart rattling in their ribcage.

_ ‘No.’ _

They didn’t say it. Saying it was letting him  _ win, _ and they were far past winners and losers.

A shaky breath was expelled from their lungs, and they breathed in the scent of storm on the horizon. Pain was coming, they knew, but they would endure. They had so far, after all. Just a little longer, and then they would be done. They’d say no one ever had to know, but…

They didn’t care.

There was a scuttle behind them, and they lowered the bow at the flash of a shadow in the darkness. With a deep inhale, they set off at a run, arrow pointed down as they swung around the side of a shipping container and brought the bow up again.

Nothing. Not a thing.

“Do you think an arrow can kill me?” Tierney called, his voice bouncing between the crates, sending the metal ringing, and Avarice crouched down. A mouse in a trap, but mice have teeth, too.

“An arrow killed Achilles,” they murmured, because Tierney wasn’t a  _ god. _ There were Guardians that could put him in the  _ ground. _ Elemental types and their bullshit.

Something wet hit their cheek, and they resisted the urge to look up. It started out small. A drip, a splatter in the puddles, but within seconds, a torrential downpour was rolling in, and they had a bowstring. Fucking  _ annoying, _ but they had timed this. They had five minutes before he could summon lightning, and he was good, but they were  _ better. _

There was a knife sheathed at their back, and they considered it, but they weren’t sure they could get close enough. Instead, they swept around the corner, dropped down as they flicked up their hood, blinked through the rain hitting them in the eyes. Droplets rolled down their cheeks, and they wiped their wet lashes with the back of their hand.

“Hiding? How very like you, [redacted],” Tierney called, and  _ there. _ Avarice sprung out, hitting the ground in a roll, and spun on one knee to let off a shot without even a glance.

The arrow cut through the air, right at a shadow atop a crate, and there was a hiss of pain as Tierney dropped. Instantly, they knew they had only glanced him, but there was blood in the water. With a muffled hiss under their breath, they backed up, gauged the distance, and took a running leap to hit one crate and bounce off of it to come to the top of the other. Tierney was already running, and Avarice drew their arrow back, tried to sight him through the sheets of water, but a boom overtook the air around them, heart stoppingly close, and they flinched on instinct. In a moment, he was gone, and they swore again, taking off at a run after where he might have gone. The arrow was gripped in their gloved hand, and they slid across the crate, leaping across to another, and whirled, trying to get a sightline on him.

Gone. He was gone.

Avarice froze, panting, because there was no finding a blood trail, not in this weather, not on asphalt, and for a moment, they felt like they were going to cry. They were in the middle of walls upon walls of metal, with an elemental type that could literally call down lightning with pinpoint accuracy, and they had the worst possible fucking weapon for this.

They needed this to _end._ _Now._ They were _tired._

There was a skitter, somewhere under the thunder of the rain hitting metal, and they took off at a run, launching themself off a crate and hitting the next one. With a grunt, they rolled to absorb the impact, and some ingrained instinct  _ screamed, _ prompting them to spin on one knee to let off another shot. The arrow sliced through the air, and a gust of wind took it off the mark, barely missing a  _ behemoth _ of a man on the crate.

There was a shift, and the chains on the crate snapped with tension as the crane rumbled to life. A long, drawn out creak echoed, and Avarice rolled again, already knowing getting trapped here was a  _ bad idea, _ they’d take the fall over an unknown any day, but a hand gripped their ankle with bruising force. Avarice twisted, the man somehow  _ much _ closer, and  _ where was Tierney? _

_ “No,” _ they snarled as they caught a flash of a bald, shining head, beady eyes, and they slammed their foot forward to connect solidly with a hooked nose. The man took the blow, and stumbled back, and they whipped the bow up to let off a shot, but he smashed it to the side with a massive hand. The bow went skittering away, and  _ definitely _ an accomplice, then, so they lunged forward, arrow gripped in one hand as the crate continued to rise in the air. The bow clattered to the ground far, far below, and Avarice lashed out. Metal hit flesh with a wet squelch, and the man yelled as he went to one knee, metal shaft sticking out of his thigh. Avarice flexed their free hand, and the bow respawned in it. Rapidly, they backed up, reaching for the endless quiver at their hip, whipped out another arrow as they dared a glance over their shoulder at the long drop below. They could make it, but…

The crate shuddered, and they almost lost their balance, stumbling forward, and massive, meaty hands descended on them. With a  _ crack, _ their nose connected with a knee, and they whipped back, hitting the shipping container hard in a sprawl. The back of their head connected with the edge of the shipping crate, and something crunched, but there was too much wet to tell if there was blood.

Hands gripped them by the hair, and Avarice was hauled to their knees, gasping and gaping as blood poured down their face from the busted nose, and their head was wrenched back to stare up at the scarred face of the man, who held no emotion in the depth of his eyes.

“He can’t move on if you don’t,” the man said, and Avarice hacked, shuddering, reaching for the knife sheathed at their back. “It’s time for you to leave.”

_ “No,” _ Avarice snarled as their fingers wrapped around the hilt, and the man didn’t wait, didn’t give them a chance. A hand was already reaching for their face, and it was over.

They never had a chance, in the end.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey. Kid.”

Avarice groaned, blinked, tried to focus their eyes, but there was red light beating into their eyes, searing their retinas, and their whole body  _ hurt. _ With a moan, they threw their arm over their eyes, the vambrace digging into a suspiciously flexible nose, and they abruptly decided that was a  _ terrible _ idea.

“Fuck,” they swore, because there was light beating through red leaves, casting dapples over their face, and they felt like they needed to throw up.

“You’re going to be a vornskr’s lunch if you stay on the ground with blood all over you like that,” an amused voice said, and Avarice blinked, wrenched their face to the side to take in the sight of a crouching South Asian man across from them, unfamiliar robes draped over the equally unfamiliar undergrowth, a helmet with a thin T of a visor on his face, armor stacked on his shoulders and chest, and they moaned again before turning their face away. “No? Just feel like being a meal?”

“Where ‘m I?” Avarice mumbled thickly, because they needed to  _ get up _ and  _ move, _ but their limbs felt like they were made of lead.

“Ruusan,” the man said, bemused, and Avarice blinked at him, their tongue thick in their mouth.

“I have no idea what that is.”

“Nowadays, no one does. You  _ will _ be lunch, though, and there’s worse things to worry about on this planet if you stay in one place.” The man stood up and cocked his head at them. “Coming, killer?”

Avarice slowly sat up, hand reflexively reaching for the bow next to them, and unsteadily came to their feet. Their head was light and spinning, and it took them a moment to battle with the  _ heaviness _ in their body before they realized what he just said.

“Planet?”

The man paused, and blinked at them.

“Yes. Planet.”

Avarice had never been someone slow on the uptake, but they had their moments as they blinked, nice and slow. Ah, they were  _ definitely _ concussed, and still sopping wet.

“Like… Ruushan is a planet?”

“Ruusan,” he corrected lightly, and tilted his head. “Wonder how you got here… Haven’t seen a breathing sentient in a while. You’re certainly not  _ dressed _ for the jungle, and that is not much armor.”

“It was a low armor gender today,” Avarice said faintly, and then their brows furrowed. “You just call the Earth something different?”

“Well, I would just call it dirt, but I’m a Mandalorian. We like to keep things simple.”

“No, like  _ Earth. _ Gaia. Terra.  _ Earth, _ ” Avarice said, and he stared at them for a long, long moment.

“You poor  _ ad, _ ” he said softly. “What happened to you?”

“... I don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” Avarice said faintly, and took stock of their surroundings. Red-leafed trees, creeping vines in a tangled growths, malformed and oozing black sap that glowed uncomfortably, and… “I really do not think I’m supposed to be here.”

“None of us are,” the man said and turned on his heel. “This way. Something’s coming, and I don’t think you want to meet her. She’s hungry today.”

Avarice had learned on the streets, and in the Institute. They were a highly trained professional, so when a strange man whose name they didn’t know told them to move, they decided it was in their best interest to follow his lead, no matter how awful they felt.

The man strode through the twisted trees with unnatural grace, and Avarice scurried behind him, slinging their bow over their shoulder as they turned an ear to hear any snaps in the foliage. They weren’t  _ great _ in rural environments, having grown up in New York City in a family that didn’t have the money to go camping, but the Institute had run them through training camps in the summer out in Michigan, and again in the winter in Minnesota, so they could learn how to handle the cold. There was some training there, but there had been a handful of lessons on hunting, and nothing about hunting in a rainforest or a jungle. The United States had swamps, and that was about as close as it got, and the Institute obviously wasn’t going to take them to the bayou. That was something you learned if you yourself decided to move out there.

So they were a little out of their depth here. They knew how to stalk  _ humans, _ not… Not run from some predator. Guardians weren’t  _ chased. _ Guardians  _ were _ the predators.

“Do you have a name?” They finally asked as they navigated around a particularly hostile-looking vine, and the man glanced back at them.

“You should be careful giving your name around here,” he said after an uncomfortable pause, and Avarice hesitated.

“What, is it like a fae thing?” They asked, because that was the first thing they thought of, and he tilted his head, bemused.

“I have no idea what that is,” he said, and paused before ducking under a low-hanging branch, like it was an afterthought. “You may call me Tarre.”

“Should I not give you my name?” Avarice asked, and he tilted his head.

“There are curious ears,” he said, like that was an  _ answer. _ “Curiosity can be a dangerous thing on Ruusan.”

How this man had gone from saying things like ‘hey, kid’, to talking like he had sprang out of a fantasy novel was beyond Avarice, but they figured silence was their best option in the wake of this insanity. Ruusan. They didn’t know what that was, had never heard of it in their life, and what kind of Evos had that man  _ had, _ that he had evidently sent them to another  _ planet? _

“Keep up, killer,” the man said, and Avarice jumped as they realized they could only see gray and white robes, far ahead, and how had he gotten there that fast? With a desperate plea for things to start making sense, they picked up the pace, their nose smarting painfully. They’d have to straighten it later, blow out the blood on… something. Figure out food while they figured out what to do next. If they  _ were _ on another planet, they had to figure out how to get back, or…

Stay here.

For the rest of their life.

Their arrow had barely skimmed Tierney, and it was like a punch to the gut. One whole  _ year _ of their life, gone, just like that. One year of a living hell, and it was just… over. Just over.

They were not going to be trapped here. Not now. They had been  _ so close, _ they couldn’t just  _ give up. _

_ ‘Did you forget your oaths?’ _

They hadn’t forgotten a thing.

* * *

It took awhile to notice, but the jungle Tarre was leading them through was deathly in its silence. It seemed to stretch on forever, and Tarre showed no signs of stopping or tiring as he led them to… somewhere. They didn’t know  _ where, _ but they were going  _ somewhere. _ They hadn’t seen so much as an insect since their trek, and it was only growing more silent as they continued on.

Avarice had never been much of a talker, even before… before Tierney. They didn’t see the sense in filling up silence with chatter, but after a lifetime of living in a city that never slept, never stopped to  _ breathe, _ the silence was grating. And it was also only posing a bigger question, a question they could not simply avoid.

“If I’m being hunted by a predator, how did it survive?” They asked, and Tarre paused in a step over a log.

“You’re very quiet for someone that thinks a lot,” he said, and Avarice stayed silent. They hadn’t had a real conversation with anyone since… "That's a good trait to have. You pay attention."

The thought of the memory brought a haze of white noise in their brain, the compliment going right over their head as their mouth went dry, and Tarre tilted his head in consideration.

“It’s a vornskr, and after the bombing, they had to find some way to survive,” he finally said. “The final battle turned this planet into a Force nexus point, so they discovered a way to live off of it, since they’ve always been tied to it, but… well. It’s been thousands of years, but they remember the taste of meat. Hard to forget. They’re predators, even now. They don’t know what they want, but they know you have it.”

“What, don’t  _ you _ have meat?” Avarice challenged, and a ghost of a smile stretched the lips under the helmet. “And what is the Force?”

The smile abruptly disappeared, and he stared at them for a long, long moment, like he was looking for something in their face. Avarice stared back, stubborn and immovable, and he abruptly turned away.

“They’ve been feeding off of me for a very long time. We’re almost there.”

He ducked between a tree split down the middle, the wood twisted and gnarled as it rose up into two trunks trying to come back together, but failing, diverging at every point they met, and Avarice stared up at the towering tree for a long, long moment. It felt… Unsettling in how it…

“It’s best not to dwell on the past, kid,” Tarre called, and Avarice startled. “Come on.”

Avarice paused, before slipping between the two trunks, each one easily the width of four of them, and they seemed to continue on forever and ever, the bark pressing close and catching on their clothes, snagging at the corners of their bow, nearly spilling out their quiver. There was something fresh in the air, and it was only in the absence of the scent that they realized how  _ rotten _ the forest had smelled until this point, like freshly turned earth and spoiled, spilt blood. It had been faint enough that it was hard to notice, but there was a scent of water and flowers, like a funeral, the same turned earth and the gurgle of something… something like a spring.

Oh. They hadn’t even noticed how thirsty they were.

“There you are,” Tarre said as Avarice stepped out into some kind of glen, and they nearly jumped out of their skin at how close he was. Tarre stepped back, gave them room to breathe, and they looked around the tiny oasis. Grass under their feet, a babbling stream gurgling out of a pile of rocks, spilling over in tiny rivulets into a pond, flowers blooming all around, a smooth boulder covered in moss at the foot of the pond. Tangled trees and vines, forcefully pushed back by some unknown force, completely blocked the glen in, and Tarre gestured to the water.

“This is the only clean water you’ll find on the planet,” he said, and Avarice paused. “The vornskrs cannot reach you in here. Stay here until dawn, and I will meet you then.”

“Why are you helping me?” Avarice demanded before they could stop themself, and Tarre blinked, like it hadn’t occurred to him that he  _ shouldn’t. _

“... Hm. I do wonder,” he said faintly, and Avarice looked back over at the babbling stream, the cold and fresh water, and tried to understand just  _ what _ was happening to them, what their  _ life _ had just become. Was this a dream? A coma?

“You can’t just---” Avarice started to say, and then trailed off as they turned back to where he had been not even two seconds ago.

He was gone, and they were alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for jumpscares and disturbing visuals.

“Where did you manage to hide all of that?”

Avarice woke with a start, heart jackrabbiting in her chest as she instinctively flexed her hand. An axe flashed into existence, leveled on Tarre with scarcely a breath to spare as she stared with wide, wide eyes at the man across from her. He didn’t seem to mind, or even care, perfectly unbothered as he gave her a benign smile. There was armor neatly attached to the outfit of the day, pauldrons and layered metal across her chest and cinched at the waist, the long coat zipped up and splitting at the navel to allow free range of movement, hood thrown back and hair decidedly longer than the buzz cut she had been sporting last night. Vambraces on the arms, sufficiently loose pants that weren't so loose they’d catch, metal plates over her knuckles and armor on her shins. In hindsight, the unexpected outfit change probably looked… different. Oh, well.

“Could be worse,” she said after a long, long moment, where Tarre just stared at her, waiting for an explanation. “And it wasn’t  _ stashed _ anywhere. It’s my Evos; I have no control over it.”

Carefully, she climbed to her feet and slung the ax over her shoulder as she got a feel for the hair of the day. Mullet, buzzed sides. Wonderful. She could rock a mullet.

“What color am I?” She asked and Tarre straightened up.

“Red and green,” he said, and she snorted.

“I’m sure that’ll make half decent camouflage,” she said dryly as she took a look around the hidden alcove. “What time is it?”

“Mid morning. I thought you should sleep while you’re here. It will move once you leave it,” Tarre said, and Avarice blinked.

“It moves?”

“... Ruusan has some interesting places,” was all Tarre said in response to that, and Avarice took her infuriating guide at face value.

“So why  _ would _ I be leaving it, then?”

“There’s no food here,” Tarre replied. “Only water. And Humans need food.”

Well, that was annoying.

“You said it was the only clean water on the planet. Humans also need water, and can generally only survive three days without,” Avarice pointed out, and Tarre's brow lifted.

Huh. He wasn’t wearing the helmet. He looked a lot younger without it. Not baby faced, no, but maybe in his mid to late thirties, perhaps? Yesterday he had seemed a lot older...

“It will be where you need it when you need it,” he said, and turned for the exit. “Come. I'll show you how to find food.”

Avarice remembered how he dodged the question of  _ why _ last night, and something settled uncomfortably hard in her gut as she followed him out into the deep, silent jungle. He hadn’t answered a lot of questions, though she also hadn’t  _ asked. _ She scarcely recalled the night before beyond setting her nose in a state of exhaustion, blowing blood all over the grass, and collapsing in a heap on the ground. There was a thick crust on the back of her head now, the wound closed, but her head was still aching, and she could only imagine what kinds of bacteria were out here to get into the gash.

“How did you even end up out here?” Tarre asked as he ducked under a branch, and Avarice lightly stepped over a gnarled root. Black sap was oozing out, almost hissing and bubbling, and she stared down at it for a moment before giving it a wide berth.

“I miscalculated,” she replied shortly, because that was what had happened.

She had known people would agree with him. She just didn’t think people were willing to act.

That was her own fault. She shouldn’t have had so much faith.

Tarre was silent for a moment, before ducking around a trunk and pausing outside of a thick tangle of vines.

“Get that axe of yours, won’t you?” He asked, and Avarice slung the weighty thing over her shoulder, swung it back and forth as she eyed the daunting growth.

“You’re lucky my weapons don’t blunt,” she warned, and started swinging. The axe bit into the flesh of the vines, and she startled, entirely unprepared for it to feel like digging a cleaver into meat. The vines split, and black ooze spilled out, pulsing and spitting, and she stepped back.

“Is this the  _ only _ way to food?” She asked. “Because this looks an awful lot like I’m hacking apart something  _ alive, _ and it didn’t do anything to me.”

“It’s not alive in a way you’d understand it, I don’t think,” Tarre said, and Avarice glanced at him. incredulously. “The whole jungle is connected. You might as well be brushing off some dead skin. It doesn’t mind, so long as you aren’t gratuitous. Comfort, not greed.”

The name she had chosen twisted in her gut, and she faced the vines again, hefted the axe, and shoved the feeling back down. That had been her choice, and she was sticking to it. It still fit. She  _ had _ been greedy, and her sense of humor had always been a bit twisted.

She didn’t answer, and Tarre didn’t offer anything else. He just watched her hack and slash through the foliage, and she couldn’t help but wonder just how he had survived this long on his own without a weapon to be found. If there really were predators, how was he avoiding them? Did he maybe have an Evos that hid him from them, was that it? He had said they had been feeding off of him for a long time, but… That didn’t answer much. He hadn’t even said a single thing about whatever  _ the Force _ was. All she knew that there was a battle here, but she didn’t see evidence of it.

Anger was lending itself to her strikes, slowly and steadily, and before long she found herself hacking and slashing and damn near tears as her head started to hurt again. It was throbbing with every swing, but she still found herself dreading the end. Every muscle was screaming, her breath was stuck in her ribs, trying to force itself out, and she wanted to gasp for air, but her  _ damned _ body didn’t let her. Optimized for combat, optimized for endurance and strength and speed, too damn good to fit these emotions, forcing her breaths to stay steady even as she wanted to cry and scream and let everything out.

There was black ooze all over her boots and greaves, splattered on the coat, and she bit back a scream that wanted to force itself out of her throat as the sizzling, hissing, uncomfortably warm sap hit her in the face. For a brief moment, she wanted to snap at Tarre, demand why he wasn’t  _ helping _ her, but the thought of receiving assistance made something ugly twist in her gut. She didn’t  _ want _ help. She wanted to hack and slash and cry and take out her frustrations on the weirdly meaty vines.

Something gave way, and she stumbled out into clear, open air with a shuddering gasp. She was  _ covered _ in the sap. It was dripping off her coat, slipping down her pauldrons and plates, splattered over her hands. It smelled rotten, like something filled with fungi and bacteria, and she was not going to be able to touch her wound to check it now.

“Feel better?” Tarre asked from behind her, and she froze, eyes locked on the two twisted trunks opposite her. “The stream seems to realize you don’t have a container yet. Rather generous of it, hm?”

Avarice blinked, and Tarre stepped up next to her, robes and armor somehow pristine and unchanging. Two hands folded behind his back, and he stared forward with some kind of resolute silence.

“We miscalculated, too,” he said, and something twisted in the air, equal parts foul and full of grief. “I’m sorry it led you here. This place is heavy. You seem like you’ve carried enough.”

It took a few seconds for Avarice to realize that this was not… a standard human interaction. Tarre seemed here and somewhere else, far, far away, observant and timeless, and she started to realize that wherever she  _ was _ wasn’t… normal. It wasn’t normal in the slightest, and she… probably needed to leave.

But she couldn’t. She had no idea where ‘here’ even was, and Tarre had said this was a whole  _ planet. _ How did you even get off a  _ planet? _ It was entirely beyond her. She didn’t know the first thing about it. Humans had gone to the moon, not the stars, and were only now discussing interstellar travel as resources became finite in a very real way.

Avarice had always thought they should have just put the damned breaks on before they got to that point, but what did she know? She was a Guardian, not an environmentalist.

“If you climb the trees, there's fruit at the very top,” he said, and eyed her. “Night falls fast, so be quick. Once you’ve eaten, you can hollow out the gourds for water.”

“Are the trees going to move when I'm in them?” Avarice asked dubiously, and he blinked.

“Whether they do or don’t doesn't matter.”

Avarice wasn’t even sure how to argue with that kind of statement of fact without any sort of follow up. She wanted to ask  _ why, _ but at this point it was better to just continue as normal and assume he was just the weirdest person she had ever encountered in her life. And she had met a  _ lot _ of weirdos in her life.

“What about the vornskr?” She asked and Tarre hummed.

“She can’t climb very well. Not the right bone structure. You'll be fine.”

“And you aren’t coming  _ with me? _ ”

“Do you need me to?” He asked, amused, almost challenging, and Avarice ignored the flicker of offense that rose up.

“Are you the only person on this planet?” She asked, and he tilted his head.

“As far as you're concerned, yes. We’re limited in how we can interact, and not all of us are people you’d like to meet.”

“I'm not even sure I wanted to meet you,” Avarice said, frustrated at the lack of information, frustrated because she didn't know what he was  _ after, _ what he  _ wanted, _ because… “What do you even want from me?”

Tarre blinked.

“Nothing, except maybe a change in the monotony,” he said, and that seemed like a recipe for disaster.

“How did you even  _ get here, _ why are you helping, how did you even  _ find me? _ ” Avarice demanded, and Tarre delicately tilted his head.

“I’ve always been here, it feels like. Which is how I found you, in a way.” Tarre paused, hummed, like he was being forced to really  _ think, _ and Avarice didn’t like that, not at all. “I’m helping because once upon a time, I swore oaths to help regardless of class or creed, and I suppose it’s hard to forget about those. Even after all this time,” he replied, and the statement seized something in Alice’s chest and crushed down on it with a vice grip, endless guilt rising up in a tidal wave, because she  _ hadn’t  _ forgotten her oaths, she  _ hadn’t _ lost her way, she just…

“I'm going to climb now,” she said abruptly, because she  _ hadn’t _ broken any oaths, and she didn’t want to even look at him.

With a swish of her coat, she took a running start and threw herself towards the nearest tree, latching on with both hands on a low hanging branch. For a moment, she swayed there, and then heaved herself up on top to balance lightly. It wasn’t all that different from climbing fire escapes, really, and confidence lended itself towards her throwing herself up and swinging from branch to branch. Muscle memory overtook her, and she hopped and scrabbled her way up the tree without a shred of thought given to safety or that these trees were  _ very _ tall.

He said the fruits were at the top, and she hadn’t even seen the sun here yet. She needed to look, see if she saw anything familiar, though…

What kind of Evos was that? He had touched her face, and she didn’t remember anything else. There was a jolt, maybe, pain, like her body was being ripped to pieces, but she hadn’t even  _ recognized _ the man, and she had been stalking Tierney for a very long time up until that point.

She didn’t want to think about Tierney. He had consumed her every waking thought for a very, very long time, and she was… tired. She was very tired, but there was that  _ need _ to get back, to end this, to figure out… One thing at a time. If Tierney couldn’t move on because  _ she _ wouldn’t, refused to give up, then…

He had brought in the big guns. He wouldn’t  _ kill _ her, that wasn’t his MO. But he sent her somewhere else so she had no choice but to retire. She had  _ tried. _ She really had. But trying wasn’t enough. In the end, her Evos just… It wasn’t enough, and she had to contend with that. He had  _ cheated. _ She didn’t know why she thought he would play by the rules, not when even she wouldn’t when the rules had failed her.

Someone was going to die, and it was going to be Avarice’s fault. She didn’t think she liked that very much.

These trees  _ were _ incredibly large. It felt like she had been climbing for an hour, but there was a breeze, and the branches were less like tree trunks and more like actual branches, so she thought she was getting to the top. Hopefully Tarre wouldn’t be  _ eaten _ while he was down on the bottom. He didn’t seem to have a weapon, and why had he stayed down, anyways? It couldn’t be because of weight; Avarice was two couters and half a cuirass away from being in full armor. Maybe he had an old injury or something. Or had a problem with heights. Avarice had never had issues with heights, personally. Most of the apartments she had grown up in were in Hell’s Kitchen, and were generally on the top floor. The fire escapes were terrifying, and when she really started training to make it into the Institute, all of New York City had become a jungle gym for her.

She was starting to really feel the head injury. She probably shouldn’t be climbing with a gash on the back of her head, already healing or not, but she did need to eat, and if this was how she was supposed to do it, so be it.

The branch beneath her feet dipped dangerously with a creak, and Avarice reacted on instinct, throwing herself up and latching on to the one above. There was something hanging above her, thick and heavy and black as night, and she shifted, pulling herself up and straddling the branch against the trunk for stability. Willing herself not to look down, she reached for the heavy fruit, about as big as half of her chest, and pulled it off.

It was hard, like a coconut, and smooth. The skin or gourd, as he had called it, gleamed in the red light, and she turned it over in her hands. She would have to cut the top off. A knock on the back, and it thudded against her knuckles, so there was definitely flesh in there. There had to be other things to eat here…

Was this poison? No, Tarre had plenty of chances to kill her, and he hadn’t.

Curiosity had her lifting her head, and she caught sight of actual sunlight she could see dappling the leaves. The fruit was stashed in her coat, against the cuirass, and she reached up, hauling herself up and through the final leaves.

There was a breeze, she noticed first, ruffling her hair and sending the top of the tree swaying. The leaves were not nearly as broad here, and the sky…

She was  _ definitely _ not on Earth, she realized as she stared out across the expanse of the world. The jungles continued on forever, and the sky… it was red and orange, but the sun was hanging high in the sky. Drifting clouds, shifting trees, not a single bird in the red blazing light. Just the sky, and the jungle for as far as she could see, mountains rising up far in the distance, forming a valley that was…

She couldn’t fully see. It was too far away. But she could see where the mountains dipped down, the jungle just abruptly cut off. There was a valley, completely devoid of settlements or life, and she couldn’t see the full expanse of it, but there was no discernable color beyond black. It was… It was just black. Was this like Hawaii? Was she near a volcano? That was definitely concerning, but…

It hurt to look at, almost. Something about the valley made her throat catch, her stomach twist, made her eyes ache with tears that wanted to come up unbidden, and it felt like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion. She couldn’t look away, and yet nothing had happened. There was no movement, no sense of life. Just red breaking off into black, somehow lonely, aching, old, and she couldn’t quite place what it looked like, but---

“A scar on the land,” someone said, and she nearly jumped out of her skin at the surprise voice. A man was braced on the treetop next to her, with wild, dark hair, sharp brows, dark skin, not even reaching for balance. He was just sitting on the branch, draped in black robes, with a metal cylinder clipped to his belt.

“What?” She asked, and he slowly turned his head to look at her, yellow eyes blazing and bloodshot.

“The land. It’s scarred,” he said, and Avarice stared at him for a long, long moment. She had very good hearing. He hadn’t climbed.

“... Okay.”

“A little bird…” He trailed off, and then his mouth split with an unnerving grin as he leaned in. “A little bird told me… you met the  _ Mand’alor. _ I wonder what kind of bird could have told me. We killed them all.”

Avarice slid back, a sense of wrongness twisting in her chest as she reached for the branch to steady herself.

“I don’t know what that is.”

_ “Tarre,” _ he spat from between blackened teeth, and came to his feet, uncaring of the weakness of the branch. “Did you like him? He’s very charismatic, isn’t he? Very protective.”

“I don’t know,” Avarice said, slowly sliding along the branch. “He said I might not like the other people that live here.”

_ “Live,” _ the man repeated, like he was trying it on his tongue. “Did he say that? Truly?  _ Live? _ ”

“I…” Avarice hadn’t been one for horror movies, but something was telling her she should take her chances with a long, long fall.

“Keeping you all to yourself when we’re so  _ bored, _ and you’re so  _ fresh, _ ” the man snarled and turned, the wind doing nothing to stir his hair or send him off balanced. “Not the kind of power I need, but you’ll do. In a pinch.”

“What the  _ fuck, _ ” Avarice swore, because that didn’t sound right, not at all, and with inhuman speed, he leaned in, inches from their face as his lips split into some kind of facsimile of a comforting smile.

“Keys to cages never look quite right, do they? I had a key once. I think you’ll fit better,” he said, and Avarice abruptly decided that this was  _ not _ a situation she needed to be in at this point in time. Fuck fighting, she needed to get  _ out. _ Now.

It was maybe a panic response, but her brain decided the best way to get out of the situation was to just let gravity do the work. Without even considering if it was a bad idea or not, Avarice tilted back and simply let go of the branch.

It was stomach dropping, and terrifying, but she fell. The air whipped around her, ground nowhere to be seen, and she hit another branch hard, scrabbling for a grip before she dropped again, falling another ten feet to hit another branch with her gut, bent in half. Adrenaline giving strength, she slid up and flipped her legs over her head, the fall overtaking as she desperately tried to twist her body so she wouldn’t snap her back with the next hit. Branches slashed at her face, and something struck her cheek hard enough to welt as some kind of inhuman cackle overtook the air around her. It sent chills down her spine, turned her fingers and toes to ice, and she landed hard on another branch, thicker now, and bent her knees with the impact. The branch snapped, and she dropped again in a yelp. Another branch below stopped her, and she caught sight of the unknown man directly across from her, twenty feet away and staring with wide eyes and a crazed smile.

That wasn’t good.

Their eyes met, and she felt frozen in place, mouth dry and brain in a haze.

“Did I scare you?” He asked, and Avarice’s eyes went  _ wide. _ “I think you may be overreacting.”

“I’ve seen The Visit,” Avarice gasped, even though she  _ hadn’t, _ and his grating voice shook her enough out of her stupor to let go of the branch and fall into a free fall. She had tested it before, at the Institute, and knew she could comfortably fall fifty feet before incurring damage. She just had to…

She couldn’t see the ground. The foliage was snapping at her, clinging, catching on her clothes, and she was falling too fast to try to avoid the majority of the damage. The bottom of her cuirass caught something, and the abrupt jolt had her flipping over and smacking her already-aching head on a tree trunk. With a grunt, she hit the branch beneath it, and nearly slid off before righting herself. Now fully clinging to the tree in a koala bear movement, she looked left and right frantically. Nothing. He was nowhere to be seen.

Panting, Avarice forced herself to relax her muscles and pressed her forehead against the bark. Her vision was swimming, and she waited for the ringing in her ears to die down before she went flinging herself down trees that towered up for what had to be half a mile tall again.

“You’re too easy,” a voice behind her purred, and every hair on her body snapped to attention as something cold came startlingly close to her back. A scream ripped out of her mouth, and she simply tipped over to continue her freefall, because she was  _ not _ doing this. No, she  _ refused. _

Torso angled down, she fell directly down with her arms and legs spread, the wind pushing up as gravity pulled down, and now she could see better. The ground wasn’t that far, she could see through the breaks in the leaves, and she swung her legs down. The underbrush was rushing up on her, and she hit a branch, swinging her legs down and swaying there. Peering over the edge of bark, she judged the distance, and decided it was time to just drop.

It was always a rush to do the ‘Guardian landing’, but it rarely ended in anything smooth like in the movies. Landing without a roll was just stupid, really. You needed to absorb the impact regardless of how ‘superpowered’ you were. It was just smart, and easier on your joints in the long run. And, generally when you did the landing, you didn’t have time for a dramatic pause before jumping into action. In practice, you ended up having to do a hopscotch to be able to do that, and it just looked stupid.

So, Avarice hit the ground in a roll, her hand already reaching for the hilt of her axe as underbrush crunched against her throbbing face. In a smooth motion, she came to her feet, axe pointed out and ready to swing.

He was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Tarre. All of the jungle looked the same so far, but this didn’t look  _ the same. _ The twin trunks were gone, and the vines Avarice had hacked through were nowhere to be seen. She hadn’t gone to another tree, hadn’t strayed from her path up, and…

What?

Tarre had something about that, hadn’t he?

“Lose something?”

The voice came from just behind and above her, and she spun, slashing up on instinct, but he… wasn’t there.

A low growl rattled the jungle, and Avarice yelped. Gleaming red eyes cut through the gloom, and Avarice froze up, because this was  _ so _ beyond anything she had ever had to deal with.

Dog.

No, wolf.

Lean and low to the ground, the creature crouched down as a long, whiplike, maned tail swept through the underbrush, sending shoots of grass and thorny weeds bouncing back. It was  _ skinny, _ Avarice realized. Skinny, with ribs sticking out of short, dull black fur, scabs oozing with blood and pus, saliva dripping from its fangs. The eyes were wild with desperation, and Avarice stepped back, the creature stepping forward to follow her as the tail continued to cut through the growth.

“Oh, no,” the man said, and Avarice coiled every muscle. “Me, or the beast? Doesn’t she look  _ hungry? _ ”

Humans, Avarice knew how to fight. Weird looking dogs that were as big as her? Well. The man had looked intimidating, but she knew how to snap his neck if it came to do or die. With a split second decision, she leapt straight up, the tail smashing where she had been less than a millisecond before with a  _ crack. _ There was a gleam of a barb dripping with  _ something _ through the matted fur tuft, and Avarice hit a low hanging branch. Gasping, she scrambled up and dropped her axe. With a flick of the wrist, the axe manifested before it could hit the ground, and she crouched low, axe held straight out and to the left as she tried to take count of the threats.

The creature,  _ vornskr, _ Tarre had called it, prowled low beneath her, tail flicking in irritation and ears twitching every few seconds. Gleaming white teeth snapped at her, and she took a deep, deep breath.

Everything was under control. This was fine. Where the fuck was Tarre?

  
There was a pause, breathless and waiting, and she leaned back just a little too far on her heels, overbalanced, and there was a  _ crack _ as the tail came bearing down on her as she fell back, the barb slicing through the air as she began to fall. There was a shift, and the temperature  _ dropped _ as the wild-haired man bore down on her, seemingly moving off of  _ nothing _ as he simply  _ passed _ through the leaves like they weren’t even there, lips split and eyes wild, reaching with clawed fingers as the lower half of his body disappeared in a blur, and Avarice opened her mouth to scream---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are we liking Avarice? Normally my MCs are chatterboxes but I'm trying to branch out to just strictly feral.


End file.
